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Apple asks its San Diego Siri quality control team to relocate to Texas (www.theverge.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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I’m sure women will be stoked to have Apple relocate them to a state that could kill them.

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[–] 140 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (6 children)

Google is dropping the Assistant team, and Amazon is dropping the Alexa team. This sounds a lot like Apple is trying to avoid an explicit layoff and forcing employees to quit instead.

Constructive dismissal lawsuit?

Edit: see this comment https://sopuli.xyz/comment/6157509

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  • [–] 38 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Yeah, that's what I was thinking. This could have the makings of constructive dismissal. Relocate to a place with vastly different legal protections or be fired? Hmm. Since it also would possibly disproportionately affect female employees, I wonder if some discrimination could also come in to play?

    Not a lawyer, just spitballing ideas.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    If they are offering a relocation package, and it sounds like they are, then this likely doesn't fall under constructive discharge. Also in CA a constructive discharge lawsuit often only makes you entitled to the same benefits as if you were fired (i.e. severance and unemployment). These guys aren't being fired for cause so they still qualify for unemployment and the severance deal Apples offering is probably already worth more than many would get in a lawsuit. A lawsuits not gonna force Apple to move the office back.

    I don't know why everyone always jumps straight to "constructive discharge" and "this must be illegal". Guys, we live in a legal hellscape, Apple may be being shitty but they aren't doing anything illegal.

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  • [–] 22 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Lawsuit of 100 people is laughable.

    Tech will never unionize, and because of that, are just shilling for billionaires so they can one day make it big. LMAO

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    You only need 40 people to start a class-action lawsuit

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  • [–] -3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Nothing those employees can do, they're even being offered money and time off to move lol.

    Legally, 0 actionable items for a suit.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    This is a clear example of constructive dismissal

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago

    Constructive dismissal isn’t illegal, it merely allows the employees to receive benefits and make claims as though they had been dismissed. California is an at-will employment state, so unless these employees have contracts stating otherwise (including the employee handbook, unless it has verbiage stating it is not legally binding), their dismissal is legal.

    Apple is giving each employee who chooses to resign a $12.5k severance package. Assuming Apple doesn’t plan on fighting any unemployment claims made by these employees, what else you think they would be able to get after a successful lawsuit?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    I don't understand what kind of magic bullet people think a constructive discharge lawsuit is or what kind of powerful uno reverse card it would be. Winning a constructive discharge lawsuit is basically being legally fired instead of quiting...they'd probably get less from that lawsuit (not even counting the time and legal fees) than if they just accepted Apples package. What is a constructive discharge lawsuit supposed to do here?

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  • [–] 15 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Not constructive dismissal, because the goal isn't to place the burden on the employee. On whatever date, they will all be terminated without cause (layoff) if they choose not to relocate. There is no goal of forcing them to quit. Presumably, Apple has filed (or will file in due time) things like the WARN Act notification.

    This is a PR move to hide the layoffs from the general public, but not from the law.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    What seems to be going down is that tech firms are laying off AI teams that aren't based on large LLMs like ChatGPT. My read: they're thinking it's time to lay off those workers in anticipation of replacing that functionality (in siri, cortana, echo/alexa) with a large LLM stack

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